


Because You're You (100 Things)

by mayaspice



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Birthday, Birthday Sex, Deviates From Canon, Established Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Holidays, Humor, Lists, Love, Relationship(s), Romance, Sexual Content, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-19
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-09-22 23:07:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17068919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayaspice/pseuds/mayaspice
Summary: Rose Tyler is just a human. She won't live much longer than the age of ninety, if she even makes it to that. (This sad reality is why she's unwelcoming of the catapultian into the next year of her life.) On the morning of her twenty fourth birthday, the Doctor shows her that there are more important things than time, like everlasting love and lists.





	Because You're You (100 Things)

It doesn’t matter how it happened; this thing between them. The important thing is that it did. Happen, that is.

Rose wakes on her 24th birthday tangled in the Doctor’s limbs (which, like the rest of him, are delightfully bare) and admires his peacefulness in slumber. It’s not often he’s ever still enough for her to carry out such intimate observation so she tries to commit as much information to memory as possible. The gentle yet unrelenting rise and fall of his chest, the wrinkled lines between his eyebrows, his pink lips pouted as soft breaths move through them.

Like anything else denied of its desired course, once the cap was released on their feelings, the contents came pouring out, unable to be contained having been repressed for so long. Every day since the Doctor professed his love for Rose – and she for him quickly afterwards – they’d found their own unique ways to say it again and again. They say it in its simplest form: _I love you_ , whispered before bedtime (or sometimes during Bed Time amidst gasps of pleasure). They say it with actions: Rose leaving the last tea bag for the Doctor, despite being absolutely gagging for a cuppa. And they say it with silent looks or touches, innocent – mostly – nights curled up in the TARDIS library, or in their bedroom like they are now, silently stroking each other’s skin or hair, to prove to that niggling doubt at the back of their minds that said it was nothing more than just a brilliant dream, that it was, in fact, real.

Rose continues to watch the Doctor and startles only slightly when he mumbles against the pillow, eyes still closed.

“Good morning, Birthday Girl.”

“Morning.”

He pulls her into him until they’re sharing the same pillow.

“You’re twenty four today.”

“Don’t remind me.”

“Why? Twenty four is a good year. I spoke my first word at twenty four.”

It’s times like these when she can’t tell if he’s making a joke or is just wonderfully weird. Judging by his solemn expression, she concludes it’s the latter.

“One year closer to death.”

“Blimey,” he says, eyes finally taking their first look of the day, his body adjusting to sit upright against the headboard. “That’s a bit morbid this early in the morning.”

As the Doctor moves upwards, Rose follows until her head rests against his chest. “It’s true though, Doctor.”

“Well yes, quite right.” He rubs his eyes and coughs, attempting to chase away the gravel of his voice, but it still remains, tired as he is. “But we can’t look at everything that way. Imagine. With every passing second, we’re one moment closer to fear and hate and other terrible things like running out of hot water in the middle of a shower. If we thought about it like that, no one would get anything done. We’d all be walking around with our heads hanging between our shoulders feeling very sorry for ourselves.”

In lieu of words – and because she can now – she reaches up to stroke a finger along his jaw. It makes a scratching sound against his stubble.

How can she be happy about her birthday when it means one year closer to losing him?

He must feel the sorrow in her touch because he asks gently, “It’s really bothering you, isn’t it? Getting older.”

“Yes.”

He deliberates for a moment.

“You know what lasts after everything else is gone?”

“What?”

“Love.”

She scoffs. “Not like you to be so corny, Doctor.”

He shrugs and she feels his shoulder move under her temple as he does.

“Love always lives on. Love is eternalised in memories, people, places. It lives in the cracks of dusty old houses when everyone is dead and gone, in stories passed down through generations. It lives on in plants grown in the earth where ashes were spread of people who once loved.”

Again, she doesn’t know what to say to something so profound. Instead, she closes her arm tighter around his chest and kisses just below his collar bone.

“I’ll love you forever, Rose,” the Doctor mumbles against her hair. “And unlike usual, that truly means something. I’m a Time Lord don’t you know?”

“Is that right? You’ve never mentioned it.”

They giggle then, together, and it’s the sort of giddy morning laughter that gathers momentum until soon they’re chuckling for no other reason than because it feels nice. Sooner or later, the Doctor speaks again.

“There are a hundred things I love about you.”

“A hundred? That’s a lot.”

“And I rounded down. The real number isn’t even comprehensible. Longer than limitless.”

“That’s too many reasons.”

“You’re right; it’s utterly excessive,” he grumbles, sliding his back down the headboard until he’s lying flat against the mattress and Rose is draped across his front. He pulls her head to his. He kisses her once, delicately, on the lips. “Disgustingly abundant.” He kisses her cheek. “Unnecessarily bountiful.” Her jaw. “But true nonetheless.”

He feels a sort of whimper or rumble move inside of Rose’s mouth but no real sound escapes. He spreads the breadth of his fingers over her throat and moves his lips up to her ear. “Would you like me to tell you?”

“Tell me?” Rose asks breathlessly, like she’s woken up from some sort of trance.

“The hundred things I love about you.”

“Okay.”

“Well number one, of course, is the way you smell when you wake up in the morning.” As if to prove his point, he moves his nose to the back curve of her ear and inhales. “Actually, I love the way you smell at any point in the day.”

The Doctor applies the lightest pressure to Rose’s shoulder and because she is like putty in his hands, she obeys his silent request and shifts to lie on her back. Her hands fist in his hair as he moves over her, drags his lips from her ear to her neck.

Against her goosebumped skin he says, “I love the way you look at me when I say I love you.”

She tugs at his head, guides his forehead back up to rest against hers.

“Yeah,” he says, staring through her eyes to somewhere buried right down in the core of her being.  “Just like that.”

They kiss and it’s slow and deep and wet and when the Doctor rolls his tongue into her mouth, Rose’s hips lift up to meet him.

“I love the taste of your mouth. Even when you’ve eaten something pungent like curry or fish.”

Rose laughs a little awkwardly, brings her hand up to cover her face in embarrassment.

“Your laugh. That’s another one. And a good one at that.”

Her fingers part and she peeks a curious eye through the gap.

“I love your sympathy and empathy. You truly care for others. I love how much pride you have in yourself.”

Her hands move up to cradle his face.

“You’re a reminder, on the blackest of days, that there’s still good in the universe.”

She kisses him again, a kiss with a purpose to say something much more than _I want you_. Maybe something more along the lines of, _Thank you, I love you_.

“I love seeing the way you are with children. Mind you, I also love seeing you drunk. All affectionate and wobbly and desperate to get to a dance floor.”

The Doctor’s right leg finds its way between both of Rose’s and the friction makes a gasp transfer from her mouth to his. Her own hands travel down his body, resting at the small of his back. He’s growing hard against her hip and she’s getting hot and damp as his thigh presses into her. Sleeping naked is a great advantage for morning sex, they’ve learned.

“You make an absolutely cracking cup of tea. I’ve had tea all over the universe, me, and no one makes a cuppa quite like Rose Tyler.”

He travels down, down her body until he reaches her breasts, taught nipples already waiting ready for him.

“These,” he says, pressing a kiss to the upper swell of each breast. “Count as two respective things.”

“That seems like cheating.”

“It’s in the rule book.”

“And where, exactly, is this rule book?”

He looks up at her, tongue teasing just above her left nipple. “In my head. I made it up just now.”

“Ah-” Rose manages to get out before the Doctor’s mouth envelops her nipple, rolling the flat and underside of his tongue over the bud.

She arches into his mouth and grabs frantically at his neck, holding him firmly in place. While he makes her writhe below him with his tongue, his hand explores the lower half of her torso, pausing above the culmination of hair between her legs. She stops moving, her body tense and waiting for that moment when he’ll give her the pressure she needs. Instead, he moves his mouth to her other breast.

“I love that you waited until I was ready to tell you I love you.”

It’s an intimate confession for an intimate occasion and it momentarily makes Rose forget that she is aching for his fingers. It all comes flooding back to her though, as he slides his thumb along her slit and spreads the moisture that shows how much she needs him.

He makes a sound sort of like a choke, sort of like a moan as her nipple falls from his mouth and he looks up at her. “I love how wet you get for me.”

He pushes his finger inside her then and she throws her head back, a little dramatically – she’ll admit, and groans long and low.

“I love the feel of your single heart beating.” He presses a kiss over where her heart lies inside through layers of skin and hits another spot deep inside her at the same time, which sends her legs spreading wider.

“Please, Doctor,” she pants and he’s oh so quick to comply.

His head is buried between her legs within moments and soon his tongue is delving inside of her, carving the crevices of her centre until her hips buck against his face.

“Tell me more,” Rose says, guiding him with the ball of her foot against his shoulder.

The Doctor takes this moment to relish how good they are at this now, how he knows intuitively what this move means, what Rose wants, without her having to speak a word of instruction. He moves back to press his tongue against her clit and replaces two fingers inside of her. Muffled between her legs, he says, “I love that you trust me.”

“I do.”

“I love the way your body looks like it’s made from marble or porcelain. It reflects the light like a fucking masterpiece in an art gallery.”

“God, yes.”

“I love the way you look at me like you’re starving and I’m a full course meal.”

“Harder.”

“I love that you let me do this to you.”

“Yes. Harder, God, please, harder.”

“I love it when you come on my fingers.”

And, on cue, Rose breaks around him. She rolls and bucks and thrusts and grabs and he keeps pulsing his fingers inside of her, still admires the sounds of them pumping in and out of her until he gradually slows down to a complete halt. It’s hot in the bedroom now, and Rose has thrashed so much that the duvet has fallen off the bed.

With his fingers still inside her, walls still randomly spasming, he mumbles against the hair between her legs, “You love me when I’m not spectacular. You’ve seen me at my highs and my lows and you’re still here.” A kiss to her thigh, where her moisture still clinging to his chin leaves a glistening trail. “You loved me when I was someone else.”

Rose whimpers and pulls on his hand. It’s another wordless instruction he understands. He moves up to her.

“Doctor, you’ve always been you. You’ll always be you. And I will always love you for it.”

He smiles, feeling a formerly fearful fire cooling in the pit of his stomach.

“So, was that a hundred things?”

“Only twenty-five.”

“Oh.”

As Rose limbos between that feeling of boneless euphoria and itchingness to reciprocate, the Doctor finds himself in need of something to distract him from taking himself in hand right this very second. So he focuses, instead, on platonic, sexless things.

“I love how you obsessively check the front door is locked every night.”

A splash of colour erupts over the apples of Rose’s cheeks, as though she’d never noticed that he’d noticed that before.

“Like a little piece of clockwork. Turn, turn, pull. Turn, turn, pull. Turn, turn, pull.”

“Oh my God.”

“You’re unspeakably funny. Quite unfair, really, if you ask me. How someone so beautiful can be so funny too.”

“You’re beautiful and funny,” she says without missing a beat.

“Good girl.”

She giggles then wriggles her fingers from his grasp, turning to face him so her front is against his side. There’s a certain edge to her eyes that makes the Doctor’s cock twitch excitedly at what’s to come. She drums a rhythm from his clavicle, between his pecs, down the path of dark hair below his navel.

“I love that you’re not afraid to take the reins,” he growls as she wraps her fist around him and starts to pump.

“And I,” she says, several octaves lower than her usual tone, “love your cock.”

His head falls back, the twists and tugs of her hand feeling far too good to last very long. Rose takes the opportunity to attack his adam’s apple with her mouth. It bobs between her lips and vibrates when he says, “I love that you love my cock.”

Rose’s ego bursts through her dirty smile like sun rays and he can’t help but want to knock her off her game. He does something quick and impressive with his legs that dislodges Rose’s hand and lands her on top of him, legs slotted between his, chests pressed together. The Doctor pushes his tongue up to the roof of Rose’s mouth and she replies with a suck of his tongue and a small part of him wishes today wasn’t just about her because another thing he loves is pushing himself into the tightness at the back of her throat.

He wraps his hands around her thighs and she scrambles up frantically until she’s straddling him.

“You want it like this?”

“Please,” she gulps, palms coming to rest flat against above his nipples.

“You’re so polite.”

“Is that a hundredth thing?”

“Yes.”

He guides himself inside of her and they groan in unison. When he’s fully seated, he moves his hands to her hips and pulls, encouraging her to move. She does, eventually, and the look of concentration on her face when she adjusts to him kills him every time.

Far too slowly for his liking, Rose starts to roll her hips and even though he wants to flip her over and fuck her into the headboard until it leaves a gaping hole in the wall, he bites his lip and lets her set the pace.

“Keep going,” she breathes, hips rocking and quickening.

He thrusts hard up into her and she gasps, knocked off her developing rhythm.

“With the–” Her sentence is broken by another moan. “With the thing. Keep going.”

He had all these things planned out in his head, could’ve listed them all with a drop of a hat at the beginning, before a very naked and wet Rose was thrown into the mix, and now his brain scrambles to find the next reason. He looks around him and remembers.

“I love the way you treat the TARDIS with respect and gratitude.”

“She’s like a roommate. Got to be good to her.”

“When we’re on an adventure, I love that you don’t expect me to save you.”

“Couldn’t do that.”

“But also,” he continues, tongue poking the back of his front teeth as he grinds her above him. “I love that you let me save you.”

She leans down to connect their mouths. It’s chaste above the obscenity of their hips continuing their dance and the contrast ignites something purer inside of him.

“I love that you fell in love with me when there were 3.5 billion human men that would’ve been considerably more convenient to fall in love with.”

“Don’t want them. Want you. Oh, Doctor.”

The Doctor’s mouth moves to Rose’s breast, teeth carefully playing with her nipple.

“I love how you say my name. Doc-tuh.”

“Doctor, can you- I want. I need. I need more.”

He leans back and fucks up into her, pulling her hips down at the same time for more leverage. There’ll be red patches on his legs later from where the backs of Rose’s thighs slap against his but Rose is both the name of the woman he adores and the shade he doesn’t mind his skin being if it’s all in the name of love.

“I’m close,” she says.

He doesn’t think anyone in the history of all of time and space has ever multitasked this well. Really, the feel of Rose’s heat and the bounce of her breasts and her whimpers at his moves are distracting enough, but throw in the chase of his own orgasm _and_ listing? He thinks he deserves a medal or something.

She whines when his fingers find her clit.

“I love that you’re always ready for an adventure. I love the way you treat my body. I love that you tell me when you’re angry at me. I love your strength. Your vulnerability. Your willingness to sacrifice. Your independence. Your inquisitiveness. I love your love of learning.”

“A dirty one. Tell me a dirty one,” she pants and she must be on the very precipice because her thighs are shaking either side of his hips.

“I love fucking you. I love that thing you do with the inside of your cheeks when you suck me off. I love the way you feel, the way you taste, all hot and wet and pulsing against my taste buds.”

When she comes this time it’s quieter, more internal somehow, and the Doctor fills with gratitude for being allowed to witness something so beautiful. Her cropped nails dig into the flesh of his chest like she’s trying to hold on to the pleasure with her fingers but as it inevitably fades away, she keeps undulating her hips against his, forward, back, forward, back.

She sighs as she stills and when her eyes open again, she gives him a certain look. One he knows means something like, _I’m done. Your turn._

He flips them over, links his arms over her shoulders, and builds up his thrusts. Rose reaches down to grab at his backside, squeezing the taught muscles, encouraging him to move deeper and faster. He does. It’s fascinating, watching Rose like this, when she’s already come twice but she’s still getting off on him finishing, and if he weren’t so preoccupied, the Doctor might like to study it more. For the moment, though, he settles on reaching his own orgasm, and Rose helps him there with a sharp suck at his neck.

“Yes, yes, yes,” she says, driving her hips up to meet his.

Every yes from Rose moves up a note from the last until she’s practically squeaking below him and that’s what does it; the thought that he is the one to reduce her to this unintelligible bundle of buzzing nerve endings and desperation. He comes inside of her, full and hot and long, and she moans.

They remain like that for a few beats until the Doctor rolls off and Rose follows him, returning to rest on that beloved spot on his chest. She strokes his calf with her foot dreamily.

“When we met,” he begins steadily, as though the thought is threading itself through his mind for the first time right this second. “You came with me almost straight away.”

“Yeah,” Rose says with a laugh.

“You were completely fine with the fact that I was a 900-year old time travelling alien.”

“Yeah, I was.”

“I love that.”

There’s a pause.

“Rose?”

“Yeah?”

“Can I tell you something I maybe don’t love?”

She moves to look at him so it’s her chin planted on his chest (underneath her hand, too, because she’s done this before – during a different post-coital conversation – and the Doctor had yelped, _ow, pointy chin!_ ). “Yeah.”

“I miss you.”

“I’m right here.”

“I miss you even when you’re with me.”

“Oh.”

Her fingers flutter over his ribs.

“Sorry,” she says.

He chuckles. “You’re so English.”

“Is _that_ a reason?”

“No.”

Both of them are happy to let the conversation drift off there, content instead with the sound of their battling heartbeats. 

Initially, when Rose started to spend more time in the Doctor’s bedroom, she wanted to move her clock to his bedside table. She’d always had a clock in her room, as long as she could remember; couldn’t sleep without the melodic ticking of a second hand. When she’d asked about moving it, he scratched his head awkwardly and said _No, just wait and see_. And she did. She discovered that the rhythmic beating of his twin hearts sounded uncannily like a clock, which allowed her to sleep without fuss. Although at times it is a little dangerous because when they lie like this, not inviting sleep, the comforting sound makes Rose drift off anyway. Currently battling the welcoming arms of sleep, though, is her stomach.

“I’m hungry,” she says.

“What do you want for breakfast, Birthday Girl?”

She hums soberly, suddenly remembering her sadness at her new age. “Pancakes.”

The Doctor stretches and Rose takes it as a cue to relocate.

“Wait, wait, wait,” the Doctor says, hands reaching to paw at her retreating arm. “One more before food.”

She melts back into the bed.

“Listen closely because this one,” he says. “Is the most important one.”

She nods and her eyes widen in anticipation.

“I love you,” he murmurs, the tip of his nose resting against hers. “Because you’re you. And no matter how far or wide or forward or back you travel, there is no one in existence that is close to being like you, Rose.”

They kiss with slightly parted lips, a soft smacking sound between them as they part.

 

 

 

They leave the bedroom, each half-dressed in some poor excuse for a garment, and are unpleasantly surprised to find that outside of their little sex bubble, the TARDIS is cold.

In the kitchen, Rose is in charge of the tea (because, truly, she's a great tea maker) and the Doctor attempts to cook pancakes that are remotely edible. After breakfast – and a handful of interludes involving chocolate spread, bare skin and hot tongues – they dress for the adventure ahead. The Doctor spends the day telling Rose the remainder of the one hundred things, and even manages to think of a few more along the way.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, I completely overestimated how easy it would be to put 100 things inside a single story. 
> 
> So I called on my trusty friend Artistic Licence for this one.


End file.
